The road (12 page)

There were knives and plastic utensils and
silverware and kitchen tools in a plastic box. A can opener. There were
electric torches that didnt work. He found a box of batteries and dry cells and
went through them. Mostly corroded and leaking an acid goo but some of them
looked okay. He finally got one of the lanterns to work and he set it on the
table and blew out the smoky flame of the lamp. He tore a flap from the opened
cardboard box and chased out the smoke with it and then he climbed up and
lowered the trap door and turned and looked at the boy. What would you like for
supper? he said. Pears.

Good choice. Pears it is. He took two paperware
bowls from a stack of them wrapped in plastic and set them out on the table. He
unrolled the mattress pads on the bunks for them to sit on and he opened the
carton of pears and took out a can and set it on the table and clamped the lid
with the can opener and began to turn the wheel. He looked at the boy. The boy
was sitting quietly on the bunk, still wrapped in the blanket, watching. The
man thought he had probably not fully committed himself to any of this. You
could wake in the dark wet woods at any time. These will be the best pears you
ever tasted, he said. The best. Just you wait.

They sat side by side and ate the can of pears.
Then they ate a can of peaches. They licked the spoons and tipped the bowls and
drank the rich sweet syrup. They looked at each other. One more. I dont want
you to get sick. I wont get sick. You havent eaten in a long time. I know.
Okay.

He put the boy to bed in the bunk and smoothed his
filthy hair on the pillow and covered him with blankets. When he climbed up and
lifted the door it was almost dark out. He went to the garage and got the
knapsack and came back and took a last look around and then went down the steps
and pulled the door shut and jammed one of the handles of the pliers through the
heavy inside hasp. The electric lantern was already beginning to dim and he
looked through the stores until he found some cases of white gas in gallon
cans. He got one of the cans out and set it on the table and unscrewed the cap
and punched out the metal seal with a screwdriver. Then he took down the lamp
from the hook overhead and filled it. He'd already found a plastic box of
butane lighters and he lit the lamp with one of them and adjusted the flame and
hung it back up. Then he just sat on the bunk.

While the boy slept he began to go methodically
through the stores. Clothes, sweaters, socks. A stainless steel basin and
sponges and bars of soap. Toothpaste and toothbrushes. In the bottom of a big
plastic jar of bolts and screws and miscellaneous hardware he found a double
handful of gold krugerrands in a cloth sack. He dumped them out and kneaded
them in his hand and looked at them and then scooped them back into the jar
along with the hardware and put the jar back on the shelf.

He sorted through everything, shifting boxes and
crates from one side of the room to the other. There was a small steel door
that led into a second room where bottles of gas were stored. In the corner a
chemical toilet. There were vent pipes in the walls covered with wire mesh and
there were drains in the floor. It was getting warm in the bunker and he'd
taken off his coat. He went through everything. He found a box of .45 ACP
cartridges and three boxes of .30-30 rifle shells. What he didnt find was a
gun. He took the battery lantern and walked over the floor and he checked the
walls for any hidden compartment. After a while he just sat on the bunk eating
a bar of chocolate. There was no gun and there wasnt going to be one.

When he woke the gaslamp overhead was hissing
softly. The bunker walls were there in the light and the boxes and crates. He
didnt know where he was. He was lying with his coat over him. He sat up and
looked at the boy asleep on the other bunk. He'd taken off his shoes but he
didnt remember that either and he got them from under the bunk and pulled them
on and climbed the stairs and pulled the pliers from the hasp and lifted the
door and peered out. Early morning. He looked at the house and he looked out
toward the road and he was about to lower the hatch door again when he stopped.
The vague gray light was in the west. They'd slept the night through and the
day that followed. He lowered the door and secured it again and climbed back
down and sat on the bunk. He looked around at the supplies. He'd been ready to die
and now he wasnt going to and he had to think about that. Anyone could see the
hatch lying in the yard and they would know at once what it was. He had to
think about what to do. This was not hiding in the woods. This was the last
thing from that. Finally he rose and went to the table and hooked up the little
two burner gas stove and lit it and got out a frying pan and a kettle and
opened the plastic box of kitchen implements.

What woke the boy was him grinding coffee in a
small hand grinder. He sat up and stared all around. Papa? he said. Hi. Are you
hungry? I have to go to the bathroom. I have to pee. He pointed with the
spatula toward the low steel door. He didnt know how to use the toilet but they
would use it anyway. They werent going to be here that long and he wasnt going
to be opening and closing the hatch any more than they had to. The boy went
past, his hair matted with sweat. What is that? he said. Coffee. Ham. Biscuits.
Wow, the boy said.

He dragged a footlocker across the floor between
the bunks and covered it with a towel and set out the plates and cups and
plastic utensils. He set out a bowl of biscuits covered with a handtowel and a
plate of butter and a can of condensed milk. Salt and pepper. He looked at the
boy. The boy looked drugged. He brought the frying pan from the stove and
forked a piece of browned ham onto the boy's plate and scooped scrambled eggs
from the other pan and ladled out spoonfuls of baked beans and poured coffee
into their cups. The boy looked up at him. Go ahead, he said. Dont let it get
cold. What do I eat first? Whatever you like. Is this coffee? Yes. Here. You
put the butter on your biscuits. Like this. Okay.

Are you all right? I dont know. Do you feel okay?
Yes.

What is it? Do you think we should thank the
people? The people? The people who gave us all this. Well. Yes, I guess we
could do that. Will you do it? Why dont you? I dont know how. Yes you do. You
know how to say thank you. The boy sat staring at his plate. He seemed lost. The
man was about to speak when he said: Dear people, thank you for all this food
and stuff. We know that you saved it for yourself and if you were here we
wouldnt eat it no matter how hungry we were and we're sorry that you didnt get
to eat it and we hope that you're safe in heaven with God. He looked up. Is
that okay? he said. Yes. I think that's okay.

He wouldnt stay in the bunker by himself. He
followed the man back and forth across the lawn while he carried the plastic
jugs of water to the bathroom at the rear of the house. They took the little
stove with them and a couple of pans and he heated water and poured it into the
tub and poured in water from the plastic jugs. It took a long time but he
wanted it to be good and warm. When the tub was almost full the boy got
undressed and stepped shivering into the water and sat. Scrawny and filthy and
naked. Holding his shoulders. The only light was from the ring of blue teeth in
the burner of the stove. What do you think? the man said. Warm at last. Warm at
last? Yes.

Where did you get that? I dont know. Okay. Warm at
last.

He washed his dirty matted hair and bathed him
with the soap and sponges. He drained away the filthy water he sat in and laved
fresh warm water over him from the pan and wrapped him shivering in a towel and
wrapped him again in a blanket. He combed his hair and looked at him. Steam was
coming off of him like smoke. Are you okay? he said. My feet are cold. You'll
have to wait for me. Hurry.

He bathed and then climbed out and poured
detergent into the bathwater and shoved their stinking jeans down into the
water with a toilet plunger. Are you ready? he said. Yes.

He turned down the burner until it sputtered and
went out and then he turned on the flashlight and laid it in the floor. They
sat on the edge of the tub and pulled their shoes on and then he handed the boy
the pan and soap and he took the stove and the little bottle of gas and the
pistol and wrapped in their blankets they went back across the yard to the
bunker.

They sat on the cot with a checkerboard between
them, wearing new sweaters and socks and swaddled in the new blankets. He'd
hooked up a small gas heater and they drank Coca Cola out of plastic mugs and
after a while he went back to the house and wrung the water out of the jeans and
brought them back and hung them to dry. How long can we stay here Papa? Not
long. How long is that? I dont know. Maybe one more day. Two. Because it's
dangerous. Yes.

Do you think they'll find us? No. They wont find
us. They might find us. No they wont. They wont find us.

Later when the boy was asleep he went to the house
and dragged some of the furniture out onto the lawn. Then he dragged out a
mattress and laid it over the hatch and from inside he pulled it up over the
plywood and carefully lowered the door so that the mattress covered it
completely. It wasnt much of a ruse but it was better than nothing. While the
boy slept he sat on the bunk and by the light of the lantern he whittled fake
bullets from a treebranch with his knife, fitting them carefully into the empty
bores of the cylinder and then whittling again. He shaped the ends with the
knife and sanded them smooth with salt and he stained them with soot until they
were the color of lead. When he had all five of them done he fitted them to the
bores and snapped the cylinder shut and turned the gun and looked at it. Even
this close the gun looked as if it were loaded and he laid it by and got up to
feel the legs of the jeans steaming above the heater.

He'd saved the small handful of empty cartridge
casings for the pistol but they were gone with everything else. He should have
kept them in his pocket. He'd even lost the last one. He thought he might have
been able to reload them out of the .45 cartridges. The primers would probably
fit if he could get them out without ruining them. Shave the bullets to size
with the boxcutter. He got up and made a last tour of the stores. Then he
turned down the lamp until the flame puttered out and he kissed the boy and
crawled into the other bunk under the clean blankets and gazed one more time at
this tiny paradise trembling in the orange light from the heater and then he
fell asleep.

The town had been abandoned years ago but they
walked the littered streets carefully, the boy holding on to his hand. They
passed a metal trashdump where someone had once tried to burn bodies. The
charred meat and bones under the damp ash might have been anonymous save for
the shapes of the skulls. No longer any smell. There was a market at the end of
the street and in one of the aisles piled with empty boxes there were three
metal grocery carts. He looked them over and pulled one of them free and
squatted and turned the wheels and then stood and pushed it up the aisle and
back again. We could take two of them, the boy said. No.

I could push one. You're the scout. I need you to
be our lookout. What are we going to do with all the stuff? We'll just have to
take what we can. Do you think somebody is coming? Yes. Sometime. You said
nobody was coming. I didnt mean ever. I wish we could live here. I know. We
could be on the lookout. We are on the lookout. What if some good guys came?
Well, I dont think we're likely to meet any good guys on the road. We're on the
road. I know. If you're on the lookout all the time does that mean that you're
scared all the time? Well. I suppose you have to be scared enough to be on the
lookout in the first place. To be cautious. Watchful. But the rest of the time
you're not scared? The rest of the time. Yeah.

I dont know. Maybe you should always be on the lookout.
If trouble comes when you least expect it then maybe the thing to do is to
always expect it. Do you always expect it? Papa? I do. But sometimes I might
forget to be on the lookout.

He sat the boy on the footlocker under the gaslamp
and with a plastic comb and a pair of scissors he set about cutting his hair.
He tried to do a good job and it took some time. When he was done he took the
towel from around the boy's shoulders and he scooped the golden hair from the
floor and wiped the boy's face and shoulders with a damp cloth and held a
mirror for him to see. You did a good job, Papa. Good.

I look really skinny. You are really skinny. He
cut his own hair but it didnt come out so good. He trimmed his beard with the
scissors while a pan of water heated and then he shaved himself with a plastic
safety razor. The boy watched. When he was done he regarded himself in the
mirror. He seemed to have no chin. He turned to the boy. How do I look? The boy
cocked his head. I dont know, he said. Will you be cold?

They ate a sumptuous meal by candlelight. Ham and
green beans and mashed potatoes with biscuits and gravy. He'd found four quarts
of bonded whiskey still in the paper bags in which they'd been purchased and he
drank a little of it in a glass with water. It made him dizzy before he'd even
finished it and he drank no more. They ate peaches and cream over biscuits for
dessert and drank coffee. The paper plates and plastic tableware he dumped in a
trash-bag. Then they played checkers and then he put the boy to bed.